I knew before I turned on the game exactly what was going to happen: give up an early stupid goal, get outshot, fail to generate any offense, gift the Blues one of the easiest road wins they'll get all season.

Does anyone else not even care anymore?

The last few years, as bad as the team was, there were a couple of things that kept me interested:

1. Watching the young players develop.

2. Speculating on what kind of moves could be made to improve the roster.

1. I'm not going to go all, 'all our players suck, let's trade everyone' but my patience is running out on #1. I understand development is not linear (I've always been a Gagner supporter) but is anyone else starting to wonder why we can't just have one player hit star status? This team has three first overall picks and two other guys that are basicall top five talents. . . and we're still waiting and watching for them to emerge.

Anyone else think that won't happen in Edmonton? When was the last time the Oilers actually had a legit, top-flight talent? And don't say Pronger. . . he wasn't actually that good until the playoffs. And Weight was great, but was he ever a top 20 player in the league? So we're going back to what? Messier? That was 20 years ago. Is there another team in the league that hasn't managed to have one legit franchise player in that timeframe? When was the last time a player so much as met expectations here? Ryan Smyth? Shawn Horcoff? Its ****ing pathetic.

I don't even CARE about winning anymore. That's obviously too much to ask with this franchise. I'd settle for just having one player step in, play well, get better, emerge as a star-type player. Hall? Nope, he gets injured every year and the team has completely failed to surround with any kind of suport that might mitigate or change his bad habits. Eberle? Nope, sucks this year. RNH? I thought he might be the guy but nope, now he's worse than Gagner ever was. Yakupov? Worst rookie season by a first overall since Erik Johnson.

And please, don't tell me to be patient. Toews. Kane. Tavares. Stamkos. Karlsson. It happens. This 'patience' thing has become a by-product of cheering for an incompetent failure of a franchise that drags every single player down into a blackhole of suck. If you just look around the league, it doesn't take long to realize; it doesn't have to be this way.

Seriously. Just think about this for a second. This franchise has not developed a single star player in twenty years. Not one. Forget about the playoffs, or Stanley Cups, or farm teams, or winning systems, or organizational cultures for one second. You know, all those 'big picture' things that we hope to see happen at some point.

Not. One. Star. Player. Twenty ****ing years. Jesus Christ, they negotiated peace in Northern Ireland since then. That's incredible, unprecedented levels of incomptency. To look at that and expect this franchise to compete for, much less win, a Stanley Cup? Build a winning culture? Develop four lines that can contribute? They can't even develop ONE player.

2. What's the point? There's too many holes on this team to even bother. And we are still SO thin in tradeable assets. I mean, what is there that could be moved? Hemsky? Gagner? Paajarvi? Moving any of those would just create another hole that management would be too incompetent to fill. And didn't we have all those assests back in 2010 when this rebuild allegedly started? What happened to all these prospects we were going to develop? When is this 'second wave' going to hit, and we're going to start seeing all this competition for jobs we've been promised? Does anyone still think that Pitlick, Hamilton, Lander, Marincin are going to accomplish anything in Edmonton?

What, as a fan, can you look at with this team and say, 'well, at least we have that'? Toughness? No. Scoring? No. Defense? No. Goaltending? No. Depth? No. Star players? No. Leadership? No. There's nothing. This team is good at nothing! And its been like that for seven years now!

And is there any hope for improvement? Tambellini can't even find a decent fourth-line winger. Really think about that for a second, too. A fourth-line winger. Teams grab those guys in free agency. Teams pluck those guys from the minors. We've gone through Stortini, MacIntyre, Hordichuk, Eager and now Brown, and none of them have been any good. This should be the easiest thing in hockey to do!

And what an abortion that fourth line is, anyway: a non-descript checking winger, a mediocre middleweight tough guy that does nothing, and an over-the-hill alleged checking center who is as soft as butter. That's brutal. I'm so tired of this team just jamming players into positions with no thought or foresight or plan, and then watching them fail. If Ryan Whitney gets traded to Detroit. . . does anyone see him being anything but successful? No, of course he'll be successful! Because Detroit will recognize him for the player he is, and put him in a position to succeed. They'll play him with a defense partner that can compensate for his weaknesses. They'll play him an appropriate amount of minutes in an appropriate role. Why can this never happen in Edmonton, ever? We haven't had a first-line center since Weight. We haven't had a legit goalie since Joseph. We haven't had a structured, capable checking line since MGM. We have never built a line of complimentary players around Hemsky. We haven't even had a decent third defense pairing since, what? Greene and Tarnstrom or something?

Forget the fact that Tambellini is incapable of making any kind of moves. I'm not sure this team is even capable of identifying what the problems are! 'You have this hole on the roster, you need this type of player to fill it'. . . do they even think like that? I don't know that there's any evidence that they do.

Does anyone think Smid will actually get signed to a reasonable deal? Nope, one of two things will happen: They'll either **** around and lose him for nothing, or they'll sign him to way too much money because Tambo knows he's incapable of replacing anyone or anything, and will overvalue him as a result. That's how things work in Edmonton.

What a brual, exhausting, frustrating franchise to be a fan of. You guys that are posting here a 100 times a day, and still suggesting trades and talking about what guys we should draft. . . I commend you.

The Kessel trade wasn't a great one, but it was a timing problem, no one had the Leafs finishing that low, what ya gonna do though, they got someone that was 6th in League scoring last year and score goals at will.

They never got that 'true' #1 center, but how many teams did? People forget that the 5 leafs with NMC/NTC really slowed down the Leafs rebuild, look at the team Burke took over.

Kadri is turning into quite a center, if he continues, there is no doubt he will be a number 1.

FWIW, as many mistakes as Burke made here, I completely agree with you. Burke would be a good hire. Unfortunately, his reputation has really taken a beating. Being the GM of a losing Leafs club tends to magnify all your mistakes and the good things you did do tend to get minimized or overlooked. So the optics of hiring him would probably not look good.

The team he took over was led by Antropov, Ponikarovsky and Stajan. People forget that. People forget that they said it was a 5 year job and after four he'd brought in Phaneuf, Kessel, JVR, Kadri, Lupul, Rielly, Gardiner, Franson... with the exception of Rielly, all of these guys are huge reasons we're in a playoff spot at the moment. I know people don't like the Leafs but I'm sure some can objectively see that he made chicken salad out of chicken **** here. I mean, it's still just chicken salad but Toronto's a long way from where they started.

I think he could do significantly more with the great pieces Edmonton already has in place. Though to me Washington seems like more of a fit.

I think he is our Patric Sharp.
People keep saying we need guys like Sharp and Hossa to compliment the kids to get the team to the next level. Truth is Sharp and Hossa are better players than our kids.

I think he is our Patric Sharp.
People keep saying we need guys like Sharp and Hossa to compliment the kids to get the team to the next level. Truth is Sharp and Hossa are better players than our kids.

Changing coaches in the middle of a re-build was probably a bad decision. This team was ten times more competitive under Renney than they are under Krueger.

But since we've changed coaches and success isn't anywhere near this team, the GM should walk next. Poor evaluator of talent with an inability to plug holes.

I know I've made a post like this a few times over the last several months, so maybe you guys are tired of seeing it, but I'm going to do it again here:

I think what some of you fail to appreciate is that there is an ongoing PR game between the management of any team and it's fans. I often liken it to a government and the people -- the game is for the people in charge to get away with as many blunders/scandals as possible without losing the confidence of the underlings. I won't bother going into the government parallels but hopefully they become apparent on their own to you all. For a team, the pattern is basically this: fans lose confidence in management so the owner (or someone on his behalf) hires a new GM. The GM is given a year or two to get some results through smaller trades and free agent signings, and the draft. If no significant improvement happens he fires the coach. If still no significant improvement happens then he starts making big trades and FA signings. He probably fires another coach along the way. This goes on for about 5 years. If the team is still not improving then the fans realize the GM is doing a bad job and lose confidence in him. The owner then steps in again and we begin the process all over.

Now I will give you my take on what happened in EDM since Lowe took over. For many years, he kept the team within striking distance of the playoffs, mostly due to players Sather had acquired. Fans did criticize him for the team never taking that next step and becoming a contender but for the most part we (including myself) gave him a break because we knew the economics of the league were stacked against him. So then they come out of the lockout and Lowe goes all out to win now, and they have their Cup run, then Prongergate, etc.

Fans gave Lowe a break for a while but then the old "what have you done for me lately" criticisms came back. Unlike other GM's that can deflect criticism by firing the coach, Lowe could not, as he would never fire his buddy MacT. So Lowe made big roster changes, year after year, as well as desperate FA attempts. It still didn't deflect fan criticism. Then he came up with a great idea: why not make up a position higher than GM, give himself the job, then hire Tambo to be the public face of management (and thus the target for fan outrage). Tambo then went in and followed the previous formula I gave, except he went straight into firing coaches mode and left out the rest. Tambo may have cooked his own goose by doing so, as the fans have already labelled him as dithering, etc. We'll see. He might survive this year, and if he does I have no doubt Tambo will get very aggressive in making moves. Why? Because his standing with the fans depends upon it. More likely, however, is that Tambo is sacrificed by Lowe to satisfy the fans and is fired. Then they bring in MacT to start the process over again. I make these predictions because they are the right "politics" of the situation. And I do think that politics is a driving force in what many teams do.

I knew before I turned on the game exactly what was going to happen: give up an early stupid goal, get outshot, fail to generate any offense, gift the Blues one of the easiest road wins they'll get all season.

Does anyone else not even care anymore?

The last few years, as bad as the team was, there were a couple of things that kept me interested:

1. Watching the young players develop.

2. Speculating on what kind of moves could be made to improve the roster.

1. I'm not going to go all, 'all our players suck, let's trade everyone' but my patience is running out on #1. I understand development is not linear (I've always been a Gagner supporter) but is anyone else starting to wonder why we can't just have one player hit star status? This team has three first overall picks and two other guys that are basicall top five talents. . . and we're still waiting and watching for them to emerge.

Anyone else think that won't happen in Edmonton? When was the last time the Oilers actually had a legit, top-flight talent? And don't say Pronger. . . he wasn't actually that good until the playoffs. And Weight was great, but was he ever a top 20 player in the league? So we're going back to what? Messier? That was 20 years ago. Is there another team in the league that hasn't managed to have one legit franchise player in that timeframe? When was the last time a player so much as met expectations here? Ryan Smyth? Shawn Horcoff? Its ****ing pathetic.

I don't even CARE about winning anymore. That's obviously too much to ask with this franchise. I'd settle for just having one player step in, play well, get better, emerge as a star-type player. Hall? Nope, he gets injured every year and the team has completely failed to surround with any kind of suport that might mitigate or change his bad habits. Eberle? Nope, sucks this year. RNH? I thought he might be the guy but nope, now he's worse than Gagner ever was. Yakupov? Worst rookie season by a first overall since Erik Johnson.

And please, don't tell me to be patient. Toews. Kane. Tavares. Stamkos. Karlsson. It happens. This 'patience' thing has become a by-product of cheering for an incompetent failure of a franchise that drags every single player down into a blackhole of suck. If you just look around the league, it doesn't take long to realize; it doesn't have to be this way.

Seriously. Just think about this for a second. This franchise has not developed a single star player in twenty years. Not one. Forget about the playoffs, or Stanley Cups, or farm teams, or winning systems, or organizational cultures for one second. You know, all those 'big picture' things that we hope to see happen at some point.

Not. One. Star. Player. Twenty ****ing years. Jesus Christ, they negotiated peace in Northern Ireland since then. That's incredible, unprecedented levels of incomptency. To look at that and expect this franchise to compete for, much less win, a Stanley Cup? Build a winning culture? Develop four lines that can contribute? They can't even develop ONE player.

2. What's the point? There's too many holes on this team to even bother. And we are still SO thin in tradeable assets. I mean, what is there that could be moved? Hemsky? Gagner? Paajarvi? Moving any of those would just create another hole that management would be too incompetent to fill. And didn't we have all those assests back in 2010 when this rebuild allegedly started? What happened to all these prospects we were going to develop? When is this 'second wave' going to hit, and we're going to start seeing all this competition for jobs we've been promised? Does anyone still think that Pitlick, Hamilton, Lander, Marincin are going to accomplish anything in Edmonton?

What, as a fan, can you look at with this team and say, 'well, at least we have that'? Toughness? No. Scoring? No. Defense? No. Goaltending? No. Depth? No. Star players? No. Leadership? No. There's nothing. This team is good at nothing! And its been like that for seven years now!

And is there any hope for improvement? Tambellini can't even find a decent fourth-line winger. Really think about that for a second, too. A fourth-line winger. Teams grab those guys in free agency. Teams pluck those guys from the minors. We've gone through Stortini, MacIntyre, Hordichuk, Eager and now Brown, and none of them have been any good. This should be the easiest thing in hockey to do!

And what an abortion that fourth line is, anyway: a non-descript checking winger, a mediocre middleweight tough guy that does nothing, and an over-the-hill alleged checking center who is as soft as butter. That's brutal. I'm so tired of this team just jamming players into positions with no thought or foresight or plan, and then watching them fail. If Ryan Whitney gets traded to Detroit. . . does anyone see him being anything but successful? No, of course he'll be successful! Because Detroit will recognize him for the player he is, and put him in a position to succeed. They'll play him with a defense partner that can compensate for his weaknesses. They'll play him an appropriate amount of minutes in an appropriate role. Why can this never happen in Edmonton, ever? We haven't had a first-line center since Weight. We haven't had a legit goalie since Joseph. We haven't had a structured, capable checking line since MGM. We have never built a line of complimentary players around Hemsky. We haven't even had a decent third defense pairing since, what? Greene and Tarnstrom or something?

Forget the fact that Tambellini is incapable of making any kind of moves. I'm not sure this team is even capable of identifying what the problems are! 'You have this hole on the roster, you need this type of player to fill it'. . . do they even think like that? I don't know that there's any evidence that they do.

Does anyone think Smid will actually get signed to a reasonable deal? Nope, one of two things will happen: They'll either **** around and lose him for nothing, or they'll sign him to way too much money because Tambo knows he's incapable of replacing anyone or anything, and will overvalue him as a result. That's how things work in Edmonton.

What a brual, exhausting, frustrating franchise to be a fan of. You guys that are posting here a 100 times a day, and still suggesting trades and talking about what guys we should draft. . . I commend you.

If I see any of Smyth, Belanger, Jones, or Whitney in an Oilers jersey next season I will have given any hope I have for this team to develop into an actual contender.
For crying out loud why not have Harti and VandeVelde replace Smyth & Belanger? Does anyone really believe that would make the team worse? At least they will hit once in a while and continue to develop.

Might as well let Whitney play out the season, he still makes halfway decent passes once in a while and I don't know that we have anyone to replace him right now except Potter or Peckam, not much of an upgrade.
Jones could, well I just don't know what to say. He flies around all night trying to hit the odd guy or play defence. Could be replaced with a BIG hard hitting winger if management was willing to package him with something else.

The Kessel trade wasn't a great one, but it was a timing problem, no one had the Leafs finishing that low, what ya gonna do though, they got someone that was 6th in League scoring last year and score goals at will.

They never got that 'true' #1 center, but how many teams did? People forget that the 5 leafs with NMC/NTC really slowed down the Leafs rebuild, look at the team Burke took over.

Kadri is turning into quite a center, if he continues, there is no doubt he will be a number 1.

I didn't think the Kessel trade was all that bad, but he put a time limit on himself by making that trade. He needed to build a team around Kessel before his contract was up, but failed to come close to that.

He isn't a guy who can fit the puzzle pieces together.

Kadri is looking great now, but if he establishes himself as a #1C next year, they'll then have to look for a #1W because Kessel will be a UFA at the end of the season.

As for Reimer, he's like a Dubnyk, imo. Good stopgap, but not a guy I want in the play-offs.

Wasn't able to watch this game, fortunately. I'm not surprised at all. This team is just ****ing terrible. Expecting 'organic growth' to be enough to bring this team into a playoff contender is just dumb. We need a GM with some balls.

We just witnessed the difference between a playoff team and a non playoff team.

Shouldn't be any big surprises there guys.

Yup. The Oil can almost hold there own until that last '20-games' of the season when the ref's always throw away the rule book. It's particularly troublesome, when they meet a physical team, which they can give no pushback.

I wonder if Tambo would of called this, 4 coaches in 4 years and at the tail end of that chaos, he's left with the worst one. Come on Tambo, have some balls, let's see you fire Kruger.

KLowe's rebuild is the "Florida Model" not the "Chicago or Detroit Model", were looking at another 20 years of this.

I didn't think the Kessel trade was all that bad, but he put a time limit on himself by making that trade. He needed to build a team around Kessel before his contract was up, but failed to come close to that.

He isn't a guy who can fit the puzzle pieces together.

Kadri is looking great now, but if he establishes himself as a #1C next year, they'll then have to look for a #1W because Kessel will be a UFA at the end of the season.

As for Reimer, he's like a Dubnyk, imo. Good stopgap, but not a guy I want in the play-offs.

Nothing like an Oiler loss to bring out the usual suspects to wag their fingers and proclaim how right they are about everything, and taking potshots at other parts of the fan base at the same time.

Same guys that complain they get too much criticism. Good, good times.

An oiler loss? More like 7 seasons worth of losses. The unfortunate thing about the finger waggers? They are correct in just about everything they say. To ignore it is being an ostrich. As for taking pot shots, the ever optomist club takes just as many pot shots as anyone else, like you just did in your post.

We just witnessed the difference between a playoff team and a non playoff team.

Shouldn't be any big surprises there guys.

Look deeper into it. Look at all the teams with apparently less talent, suspect rosters, horribly injured teams that are playoff teams and then look at the oilers. The oiler organization deserves every bit of scorn they are getting these days.

An oiler loss? More like 7 seasons worth of losses. The unfortunate thing about the finger waggers? They are correct in just about everything they say. To ignore it is being an ostrich. As for taking pot y.shots, the ever optomist club takes just as many pot shots as anyone else, like you just did in your post.

Actually, that's a complete load of ****, but whatever.

When you complain about absolutely everything all the time, then pick and choose when the time is right to show your vast hockey knowledge, it's beyond ridiculous.

Nothing like an Oiler loss to bring out the usual suspects to wag their fingers and proclaim how right they are about everything, and taking potshots at other parts of the fan base at the same time.

Same guys that complain they get too much criticism. Good, good times.

You might want to consider the frustration within fanbase that causes some fans to be frustrated about other fans wanting this org to engage in a full on *rebuild* suck for years and that they would then somehow magically pull out of that. Building isn't ideally accomplished by destruction imo

What happened last night, and is happening again this season, was forecast by many posters here. That steering a train off the tracks on purpose is rarely a good path to pursue.

Not sure if thats what you're talking about or more specifically the posters that knew we would lose yet again against the blues.